


Fools of a Present Kind

by Rye (AlastorGrim)



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Again, Being Ghost King Makes You OP, Christmas Truce 2020, Gen, Mild Gore, Pariah Dark Gets Released, Pariah Learned His Lesson About Meddling Halfas, Party Crashing, i don't make the rules, just a little fluff, savant par if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:08:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27953648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlastorGrim/pseuds/Rye
Summary: Danielle and the trio decide that dressing up Pariah Dark's sarcophagus for the holidays is agloriousidea....It's not.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 26





	Fools of a Present Kind

**Author's Note:**

> This is for my secret santa recipient: sailor-toni on tumblr! I couldn't decide on a full fleshed out fic for just one of the prompts, so I took a bit from several! Happy Holidays, my lovelies 💚

"I feel like we maybe shouldn't be in here," Tucker murmured as Danny dropped them to the floor. Their footsteps echoed on the black tile, ringing through the hallway like a faraway gong. Tucker shuddered.

Danny clapped him on the back and curled his tail around one of Tucker's legs, grinning impishly. "Aw, c'mon Tuck! You were all for it five minutes ago!"

Sam trotted on ahead of them, Dani at her side and both them carrying bags upon bags of Christmas decorations. "Yeah! You love playing pranks! So get over here and help me hang this tinsel!"

"Your tinsel has bats on it," Tucker protested weakly. He glanced around at the portraits on the walls, their pale, horrid faces staring at him with wide, frightened eyes that seemed to follow him when he moved. Jumping when he felt the hand on his shoulder squeeze, he looked up to meet the mischief-bright eyes of his best friend. 

Danny tipped his head at Tucker, his tail coiling around one of Tucker's ankles and tugging absently. "You don't have to come you know. If you wanna take the speeder back to the house, I'll fly Sam back myself. Ember won't care if I'm late." He paused, then winced. "Probably, anyway. Point is--if you wanna bail, I won't stop you. But you should know by now that I wouldn't let anything bad happen to you." He tapped his chest. "Protection, remember?"

Tucker huffed and crossed his arms. "Nah, I promised. Besides, Sam would rag on me for weeks if I bailed on you guys."

Laughing, Danny shook his head. "Yeah, you're probably right about that. Come on, then. Dani was all excited to spend the holidays with us--we can't let her down now, can we?"

His legs faded back into existence as he dropped down to the floor as well, walking beside Tucker as they crossed the throne room to the dais that held the target of their little 'prank'. 

The Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep, ironically, was already Christmas coded, what with the red and green glowing liberally all along its designs in a way that probably meant to be menacing, but now, with Sam stringing up silver tinsel with glittery black bats hanging from it along the neck, looked more like an ornament than anything. Dani pulled out a string of multi-colored lights and began tracing it around the Sarcophagus like a tree, giggling quietly as she did so. Danny raced up the steps to join them, a grin on his face as he dragged Tucker with him and shoved a handful of mistletoe with blackened leaves into his arms. Danny himself took the packets of stickers and ripped them open with his teeth, scrunching up his nose when his fangs got caught in the plastic. Spitting out the wrappings, Danny flew up to follow Dani's light path with sparkly stickers. There were skulls with Santa hats, bare pine trees hung with bones, purple and black ornaments--the works. Sam had ordered them offline, and he was surprised she'd even been able to find this much stuff so close to Christmas. Well, he guessed with the theme of it all that he shouldn't have been. 

"We're basically decorating the coffin of a murderous ghost tyrant," Sam had insisted. "It _has_ to be creepy."

Danny had just let her have her fun because honestly, ever since Dani had suggested they desecrate the 'great Ghost King's' lair, he'd been in it for the meme. 

Dani had never met Pariah--she hadn't been made yet--but from what she'd heard, she thought he deserved a little prank, even if he was too busy snoozing to appreciate it. She'd inherited more than a bit of Danny's trickster streak, clearly. 

They decorated for a while, enough so that there was hardly a spot left on Pariah's sarcophagus that wasn't decked to the halls and back.

Tucker had relaxed, it seemed, because now he was snickering with Sam over something she'd said, taping the fake sprigs of mistletoe between the angry etchings of skulls that lined the waist of Pariah's sarcophagus, occasionally making little kissy noises and making Sam cackle with laughter. Danny hummed and stuck a Santa skull sticker directly in the middle of Dani's forehead, making her squawk with indignation. The sarcophagus was too tall for Danny to make out exactly what Sam and Tucker were saying, not with them at the bottom and he and Dani at the top, but he imagined it was something inappropriate. 

Dani snatched his sticker sheet away and flew off with it. "Ha! Bet you can't catch me!" 

"Bet I can," Danny drawled easily, smirking as he watched Danielle pause at his tone of voice, uncertain. She yelped when a moment later Danny had grabbed the line of lights still wrapped around her shoulder and yanked, sending her tumbling back to him. 

Only, he may have miscalculated, because she came flying at him much faster than he'd expected and crashed into him. Danny's breath was punched out him as he and Dani slammed into the sarcophagus, the world beginning to tip as they went down. 

"Oh, oh _shi--_ GUYS MOVE!" Danny yelled as the sarcophagus tilted and fell, his arms flailing in air as he tried to get his balance back midair, one arm wrapped protectively around Dani to get her afloat as well.

Sam and Tucker dove out of the way just in time for the sarcophagus to hit the ground, then go tumbling down the stairs, cracking and rumbling as it went. Tucker cursed loudly, hands flying to his foot as he struggled to sit up, and Danny's attention flew from the broken sarcophagus to his friend. 

Letting go of a now shaking Dani, Danny flew down to Tucker just as Sam made a nauseated noise. A moment later, Danny saw why. 

Tucker sat staring down at his foot, his shoe halfway off and the whole thing twisted oddly and a bit deflated. Silent, shocked tears were streaking down Tucker's face, but other than that he wasn't showing any other signs of pain. 

...That meant he was probably going into shock. Danny paled. 

Danny got hurt all the time, so it didn't really ever occur to him but--Tucker's bones were definitely broken. The sarcophagus had fallen on his foot and _crushed_ it, and for someone that didn't have half-ghost healing properties, that was bad. No, bad was an understatement; this was _awful_. 

And of course (because when would Lady Luck ever favor them, the Troublesome Trio, the Quarrelsome Quartet), that was when the sarcophagus burst open. 

A loud, triumphant roar rang through the throne room, smoke and light exploding out from the cracked artifact as Pariah Dark stepped out of his glittery prison. Danny went rigid. A deep, earthy scent permeated the air and made deep black shadows flash before his eyes. It felt like history and darkness--a sense of _power_ that left grit behind his teeth and sand in his ears. 

He'd almost forgotten it. He had hoped to forget it.

"Once again, I am freed from my cage of slumber," Pariah rasped, head raising to breathe in a deep, unneeded breath. His chest heaved and he flexed his hands, solid green eyes turning down and sweeping the room before alighting on the dais and the four children before him. He grinned, zeroing in on where Danny was cradling Tucker close to him. "And it is the same child who once locked me away that frees me now. Have you grown as foolish as your predecessor? Did you hope to take my power for yourself?" He thumbed at the Ring of Rage, which still glinted brightly upon his large fingers, surrounded by blackened plates of armor. 

"Danny," Sam whispered, voice shaky. "Danny, what do we do?"

Swallowing harshly, Danny cast his gaze between them. Dani was still hovering in the air, frozen with her wide eyes on Pariah. She was glowing a bit more brightly--a sign that she felt the same surge of power from the Ghost King as Danny had. Tucker was alternating between staring down at his injured foot and Pariah, eyes glassy and uncomprehending. It was an unnerving expression.

Muttering a quiet apology, Danny set Tucker back down on the floor and leaped up off the dais. "You act like I couldn't just put you right back in your stupid coffin."

Danny knew he couldn't. And from the dark, malicious smile Pariah was giving him, the Ghost King knew it too. 

"Truly, yours is a generation of arrogance," Pariah said softly, taking a step forward. "Or, perhaps I should say, yours is a _creature_ of arrogance. All three of you." His gaze turned up to where Dani was frozen, head tilting in curiosity. 

"Little abominations that you are."

Danny's temper flared. "Shut the _fuck_ up, you discount Hitler," he snarled as he flew forward and up, fists raised and bursting with ectoenergy. "You've already been couped! Ever heard heard the phrase 'stop while you're ahead'?"

He hurled a blast of ectoenergy at Pariah's head, but the Ghost King merely grinned back at him. Grasping the toxic green beam in one gauntleted hand, it solidified until he could snap it like a whip--sending it crackling back towards Danny to wrap around his wrists and fling him into the wall on the other side of the room. Danny let out a strangled yelp and slid to the ground with a groan, spots dancing before his eyes. Pariah hummed and released the strip of energy, letting it fade into nothing. "You've gotten stronger, child. Much stronger. But you are still no match for me."

"Still?" Danny managed to get out around the ectoplasm currently flooding his lungs. He coughed wetly and stood on shaky legs, rising slowly back up to meet Pariah. "Last I checked I kicked your ass."

Irritation flared over Pariah's face, expression twisting into something cruel. Without looking away from Danny, he raised a hand and took aim at the dais, hitting Dani full in the face with a beam of yellow light. She screamed and collapsed to the ground, and Danny felt panic rise in his chest and begin to choke him.

"Danielle!" He yelled in protest, bolting forward to try and get to her--

Only to be caught around the chest by Pariah. Danny cried out in pain when he felt his already broken ribs grind against each other, ectoplasm coughing out of his lips and dribbling down his mouth. Danny felt his core sputter and pulse, felt his transformation rings begin to form, only to be stopped by Pariah's grip tightening around him. The Ghost King's hand was glowing green, somehow preventing Danny from changing back to Fenton.

Pariah brought him up to eye level, his expression suddenly solemn. "Your wry wit will hardly save you, child. Not that--"

A brilliant stream of white light struck Pariah in the back, and he whirled to Sam aiming the Fenton thermos at him with shaking hands. Snarling, Pariah swept a hand down and sent an arc of electricity at her, cracking the stone steps in two and sending Sam flying back with a shout, the thermos spluttering out as it was cut in half. 

Danny struggled in Pariah's grip, frantic. "L-Look--it's the Truce! It's the Christmas Truce, you can't--"

"That inane tradition?" Pariah sneered, rounding on him once more. "Are the lot of you so foolish as to have reinstated it after I was defeated? Are you all so _weak_ as to demand _peace_?" He roared. Growling, he released Danny, but instead of crumpling to the ground, the glow around the King's hand expanded and hardened until Danny was trapped a sphere of emerald glass. Dropping to the bottom curve of it, Danny heaved and hacked, a bit of red mixing in with the green of his ectoplasm. Holding Danny's sphere up to his face, Pariah curled his lip up. "Ghosts are creatures of obsession. We wreak havoc and destruction wherever we go, cause chaos with whatever we do, and yet they would delude themselves into thinking they deserve a reprieve from their own violence? I think _not_." 

"No, listen, y-you can't--you CAN'T!" Danny banged his fists weakly against the glass, screaming in protest when he saw Pariah turn and head for the destroyed pedestal. Tucker was still out of it, Sam had crashed into the wall and been knocked out, and Danielle was...trapped just as he was. Danny felt a rush of relieved guilt as Pariah bypassed his friends completely to reach for the yellow orb that held Danielle, sending her up to float alongside Danny above the Ghost King's horns. 

"You were wrong, child. The burden is never your actions." Pariah grasped his axe from the wall and ripped it off, bringing several bricks down with it. Then he turned his back on the keep entirely, flying off towards the Truce party. "It is _always_ the power."

•♧•

Vladimir Plasmius did not usually come to the infamous Christmas Truce Party. He found the whole affair tedious and boring, he hated having to observe niceties in a state of being where niceties should not have _mattered_. Everyone in this room was dead (or at least partially so) and so it should not matter whether he was rude to them or manipulated them or tried to ensure their eternal enslavement. 

So Plasmius hated the Truce party. He would have avoided it this year as well, had it not been for Skulker warning him that his ghostly allies were getting a bit antsy, having never seen him perform the regular day of amnesty and thinking him a potential danger to them. He'd found it laughable.

Plasmius was _always_ a danger, no matter whom it concerned. He was a dangerous man. He took pride in the fear he inspired in others, and he despised the fact that attending this Truce nonsense made him seem more 'approachable'. What a laugh.

Whatever the case, Vlad was here, and he was currently listening to Technus prattle on about his latest scheme when the entire foundation of the house shook. The lights flickered, and the chatter of the party went quiet. When Plasmius' lips parted in surprise, his breath steamed the air in front of him. He frowned.

The party was being hosted by that irritating musician ghost with the obnoxious flame hair, and while her lair wasn't necessarily in a 'safe' part of the Ghost Zone, it was nowhere near anything that could've shaken the foundations of a house that _didn't actually have foundations_.

Whirling on the spot, Plasmius rose up from the ground with narrowed eyes, hands glowing pink with ectoenergy. 

If there was a beast that had strayed from its lair on the night of the Truce, Plasmius was one of the best suited to kill it. He was stronger than most of the ghosts here; if there was an attack, Vlad could put a stop to it. And, he mused, having a whole room full of spectres owe him something of a life debt (ha) could never be a bad thing. An ace up his sleeve if he needed it. 

That, and he didn't see any of the rest of these idiots gearing up for a fight. He'd rather not die again tonight.

There was another rolling rumble, and the light guttered out completely. Only the faint glimmer of ghostly auras and Plasmius' own glowing fists kept the room from plummeting into darkness. There was an oppressive feeling growing in the air that left a taste like ancient stone and smoldering parchment on the back of his tongue, crushing in on him from all sides and warning him to bow his head or have his neck be broken. And very suddenly, he knew _exactly_ what beast had been released. 

Plasmius' eyes widened, but before he could turn tail and flee, the door to the musician's lair burst open. A shot of red aimed directly at Plasmius caught him in the chest, sending pain flaring out through his limbs and encasing him in a crystalline sphere. Cursing loudly, Vlad collapsed, the magenta of his hands dying out as his energy was sapped.

Pariah Dark stood above them all, a deeply displeased look on his face as he looked out over the sea of cowering ghosts. Several screamed and tried to run, but he merely placed a hand against one of the walls and sent a pulse through it, locking them all inside with a shield not unlike the one he had once placed around Amity Park. Vlad's jaw dropped when he caught sight of an unconscious Danielle and a battered Daniel hovering above the Ghost King's head in bubble prisons similar to Vlad's own. 

He was targeting halfas. Of course he was.

Vlad cursed himself for being so hasty to rise against an unknown threat. Hovering above the rest of the crowd had been foolish--he'd made himself an easy target.

"SILENCE!" Pariah roared over the din of the frightened crowd. The ground rumbled once more, and everyone hurriedly shut their mouths. Plasmius watched them all huddle together in the center of the room as his ruby colored prison was called across the room to float between Daniel and his clone, directly where the Crown of Fire had once rested. Pariah overlooked the other ghosts with a sneer. "There will be no running this time. You're desire for calm and quiet--for _mercy_ \--on this night has betrayed you. Corralled you all together in one simple circle for me to collect." He snapped his fingers, and bright green chains shimmered into being to cuff around each ghosts' wrists, linking them to their neighbors and keeping them in place. 

Pariah swept forward, his ragged cloak fluttering behind him as he crossed the small room to stand in the center, towering over them all. He raised a hand above his head and blasted through the ceiling, the rest of the musician's lair crumbling into ash as the shot ate through the very fabric of the pocket dimension, leaving them all floating in the middle of the Ghost Zone. 

The musician gave a choked shriek, her hair abruptly falling black as she fainted into the arms of Skulker, who was cuffed to her right. It didn't seem like she would wake anytime soon.

Smiling darkly over them all, Pariah spread his arms wide, tendrils of shadow emanating from his fingers. "Now," Pariah began slowly, the shadows coalescing around them into a great void. "I think that it is time for something of a... _change in tradition_."

Everything went black.


End file.
